Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Rio Grande (1950)

Rio Grande

There is a
certain genre of films that centers on a military outfit: Daily life, new
recruits, dangerous assignments and the dynamics between officers and enlisted
men. I have seen tons of these movies because they have a certain appeal on
boys. Such movies are brimful of all the testosterone qualities and values that
you admire and long for growing up as a boy and they never really loose that
appeal although as you get older you realize that this is not all fun and maybe
even at some fundamental level wrong.

Rio Grande
is such a movie. No more and no less.

In this
case the setting is the Texan frontier in the late 1870’ies (based on this
being 15 years after Shenandoah, an event during the civil war). The military
outfit is a regiment of the US Cavalry and the baddies are Indians on the
rampage.

John Wayne
is Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke, the commander of this outfit. He is almost
unrecognizable with his moustache and trimmed hair. Only his talk and stance
give him away and out course his trademark stubbornness. The outfit has, of
course, an older uncle of a sergeant who is part tough, part a lovable teddy (Victor
McLaglen), a bunch of merry men, who also happen to be very skilled horsemen
and a number minor side characters to give the outfit flavor. I mention all
this because this lineup is so classic it is almost cliché. I do not know if it
originates from this movie (hardly), but it certainly follows the recipe. We
get all the usual camaraderie and some shenanigans before things start getting
serious.

The drama
follows two tracks. The internal drama is a domestic one. One of the new
recruits in the regiment in Jeff Yorke (Claude Jarman, Jr.). He failed math and
dropped out of West Point, but immediately enlisted as a private and ended up
in the very regiment of his father. He has something to prove and the Colonel
recognizes that and treat him like a soldier rather than a son out of respect
for him.

Then
Trooper Yorke’s mother and Colonel Yorke’s wife shows up (Maureen O'Hara as Kathleen
Yorke). It is pretty clear that this is not a social visit. She want to take
Jeff home as it is clearly a mistake to enlist in the army, but when she
realizes that both father and son need to give their consent and neither is of
a mind to do so she just stays around. Kirby and Kathleen has not seen a lot of
each other lately and there is a standing disagreement between them going back
15 years when Kirby as an officer of the Union army was ordered to burn down
Kathleens family plantation in Shenandoah. She has never forgiven him that and
I suppose it did not help that Kirby is also, and probably foremost, married to
the US Cavalry.

The stage
is set for a little bit of family drama.

The second
track is the fighting between cavalry and Injuns. We never really get a good
insight into the conflict. The why’s and how’s are neatly skipped over and what
is left is a ragged but deadly band of Injuns who hide out in Mexico and strike
deep into Texas wreaking havoc, killing women and kidnapping children. This of
course is what the cavalry is for so we get some battle glory with a good
chance for young Trooper Yorke to distinguish himself and prove himself a man.

It does
sound pretty lame presented like that and plot-wise this is not a very original
movie. The execution however is good. Very good even. John Ford loved the
frontier and nobody, with the sole exception of John Huston, was able to
incorporate the rugged, but beautiful landscape of the south-west like him.
This is a movie that needs to be blown up on a big screen. Also John Ford had a
thing going with John Wayne that brought out the best in him. Even when the
movie sinks hopelessly into syrupy nostalgia they give the Kirby character
enough grit to balance the movie. But most of all the movie is entertaining
like hell. This is such an easy watch that you hardly notice that a hundred
minutes has passed. That does count for something.

On the
negative side this is a movie that cannot decide in which direction it wants to
go. Is it a comedy or a domestic drama or a military action movie or, most
problematic of all, a musical?

For some
obscure reason musical intermezzos are peppered across the movie. Usually it
breaks the illusion in that annoying musical fashion that just would never
happen in reality and that is unfortunately a big annoyance, at least for me.
If you want the audience to swallow the story you just cannot do that. It
corresponds to having the characters stop up and talk directly to the audience.
In that sense I do not really care if the music is good, it is just stupid. Especially
since this movie is otherwise decidedly not a musical.

Unfortunately
this is all part of the template. Follow a military outfit, throw in a bit of
this and a bit of that and garnish with a few songs and the audience is happy.

I also
think that, like the quite similar Gunga Din, it has some problems with the parties
in the conflict it describes. Things are so much easier when it is simply the
good guys versus the bad guys. I am quite sure there are some, Indians of both
kinds, who would object to the presentation of them here.

Overall
however I cannot deny that I was entertained and that this was a lot of fun and
great movie to blow up on a big wall. Sometimes you need a bit of pulp.

Oh, and the
family conflict? That becomes a metaphor for the restoration and reconciliation
of north and south after the civil war. Pretty neat.

That is the thing. Despite it's shortcomings it is a highly enjoyable movie.I do not mind when singing is integral to the movie or something running in the background, but when the singer(s) step out of the movie to perform the song it ruins the experience for me. There were several examples of that in this film and it makes me fear for the coming Ford films.

I saw this a few years ago, but I only very recently saw the first two films in Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" - Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. All three have similar kinds of characters in them, played by the same actors, but they are not the same people, so the movies are not an actual trilogy. Of the three I like Fort Apache the most.

I was considering watching all three until I realized that they are only thematically a trilogy and do not need to be watched together. I wonder why they picked Rio Grande over Fort Apache though? Maybe because it introduced John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara as a couple?

Disclaimer on spoilers

If you have not seen these movies yet you may want to skip out on reading these commentaries. I am rarely holding back from revealing details from the movies that a proper review would hide under a spoiler tag. The reason is that these are not really reviews, but just my comments on the movies and some of the details which are most interesting to comment on are exactly the parts which will spoil the surprise if you have not seen it yet. So be warned.

About Me

In 2010 I started the project of gathering and seeing the 1001 movies listed in "1001 movies to see before you die". This is a blog to allow me to comment on them.
I am married with a son and geologist by training. Since 99 I have worked as a wind engineer at EMD (www.emd.dk) where I mostly work with wind studies and noise.